Hi all, I was wondering if any of the GMs who ran/read (or is currently running/reading) Spires of Xin-Shalast has developed this book in any way. My players have just defeated Ghlorofaex and are now heading to the Shahlaria to butcher a few rune giants (in order to free other giants from their mind control and receive some help in liberating the city from the minions of Karzoug). If they manage to clean the fortress from the rune giants' presence, I think it would be fair to reward them with the Ebidwar, and here I am asking for some suggestions.
At the moment I have only decided that it is going to be a minor artifact that bestows some powers and benefits on those who read it. In order not to abuse it, only one reader can benefit from it at a time (just like the books that raise ability scores can be read by only one person). In order for anyone else to benefit from the book, the previuos reader must be either dead or willing to renounce the powers bestowed by the Ebidwar.
Some abilities that sprang to mind are bonuses to Leadership score, AC, saving throws, weapon attacks and damage, Knowledge checks regarding the identification of monsters' offensive and defensive abilities, permanent bonuses to Intelligence/Wisdom/Charisma, ranks in Knowledge (nobility) and (engineering), and maybe some spells and feats to be used while holding the book.
What I'm looking for are suggestions on how to further develop those ideas, quantify bonuses, select granted spells and feats, and of course setting the price to be paid for such powers. After all, as a minor artifact, I expect the Edibwar to have an Ego score :)
Let the suggestions flow!
Did someone cast Invisibility on this thread? :(
Or nobody actually used that element in their game?
Sorry, still only have 2 groups on Burnt Offerings, but I often drop small skill bonuses on items just to make them a little more interesting.
Like I made Nualia's sword a +1 Osirian Kopesh with a Least Lifedrinker Weapon Augment Crystal and a +2 to Acrobatics...
I'm not sure what item your talking about but putting Commune on any item is always fun, just make sure there's some cost associated with it like gold or rituals.
Ah right, maybe I should have been clearer about the Ebidwar. After all it's only briefly mentioned in Spires of Xin-Shalast, in a non-detailed building of the City of Greed. To quote the adventure's text:
"A mystical book called the Ebidwar is said to contain Turengate’s military strategies. Rumors state the Ebidwar can bestow Turengate’s insights and instincts upon a reader, making said reader a nearly undefeatable war leader. Legends of the Ebidwar continued through the many
intervening centuries and the book has now become mythical and synonymous with any general’s overall strategic philosophy. In truth, the Ebidwar does exist and remains hidden deep in the ruins of the Shahlaria. Anyone who finds and translates its Thassilonian script would surely become a mighty general among the modern nations of Golarion, commanding great respect and enabling him to raise loyal armies almost overnight."
Hope that helps some paizonian help me with this :)
Ah right, maybe I should have been clearer about the Ebidwar. After all it's only briefly mentioned in Spires of Xin-Shalast, in a non-detailed building of the City of Greed. To quote the adventure's text:
"A mystical book called the Ebidwar is said to contain Turengate’s military strategies. Rumors state the Ebidwar can bestow Turengate’s insights and instincts upon a reader, making said reader a nearly undefeatable war leader. Legends of the Ebidwar continued through the many
intervening centuries and the book has now become mythical and synonymous with any general’s overall strategic philosophy. In truth, the Ebidwar does exist and remains hidden deep in the ruins of the Shahlaria. Anyone who finds and translates its Thassilonian script would surely become a mighty general among the modern nations of Golarion, commanding great respect and enabling him to raise loyal armies almost overnight."Hope that helps some paizonian help me with this :)
We are also in Burnt Offerings (just finished it last night)
I often give small bonus items as well, and ALL of my magic weapons have a name (and quite a few have additional minor abilities.) For example, the party found a Spiked Club in the SPD lair. It's Ironbreaker (translated), a hobgoblin +1 Warclub that does an additional +1 vs opponents in metal armor.
Elyrium's returning dagger is Ragespike. (I didn't alter this one, just named it).
Korvus' Scimitar (Vornikhar or the Striking Serpent) gets +5 to resist breakage/ shatter, etc.
It makes each weapon a bit more interesting and its also more fun to hear "I pull out Ironbreaker and charge into Ripnugget" than "I pull out my +1 club and charge into Ripnugget."
As for the book, maybe give the reader a +5 to bluff and diplomacy when eading troops. And if he passes a DC test (determined by the forces he has vs his opponents) he might grant them all a +1 or +2 Morale bonus to hit and damage (or HP) do to the tactics and training.
Something like the Bardic Music Ability...
Ah right, maybe I should have been clearer about the Ebidwar. After all it's only briefly mentioned in Spires of Xin-Shalast, in a non-detailed building of the City of Greed. To quote the adventure's text:
"A mystical book called the Ebidwar is said to contain Turengate’s military strategies. Rumors state the Ebidwar can bestow Turengate’s insights and instincts upon a reader, making said reader a nearly undefeatable war leader. Legends of the Ebidwar continued through the many
intervening centuries and the book has now become mythical and synonymous with any general’s overall strategic philosophy. In truth, the Ebidwar does exist and remains hidden deep in the ruins of the Shahlaria. Anyone who finds and translates its Thassilonian script would surely become a mighty general among the modern nations of Golarion, commanding great respect and enabling him to raise loyal armies almost overnight."Hope that helps some paizonian help me with this :)
My players are just finishing AP4 so I have a little time to think on what this could do. I think I am going to hold off until it is revealed in Kingmaker what the Mass combat rules are. That way I can make this book apply to those rules.
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I'm using a facsimile of the battle rules from Red Hand of Doom to conduct my battles, along with my homebrewed Knowledge (warfare) skill. I plan to have the Ebidwar grant a +20 bonus to that skill as long as the book is available to consult.
I'm using a facsimile of the battle rules from Red Hand of Doom to conduct my battles, along with my homebrewed Knowledge (warfare) skill. I plan to have the Ebidwar grant a +20 bonus to that skill as long as the book is available to consult.
This looks very interesting, are those rules available for consulting anywhere? I do not own Red Hand of Doom...
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This looks very interesting, are those rules available for consulting anywhere? I do not own Red Hand of Doom..
No, I'm afraid RHoD contains no open content. The gist, however, is simple enough:
The battle is won when a certain number of victory points is gained. You gain victory points by achieving certain things: killing commanders/casters, stopping/repelling the bridge attack, forging/disrupting alliances, harvesting/disrupting supplies. The points gained for each task are usually low (1-5 pts), but can be higher for significant successes. The points must be accrued within a certain timeline to ensure victory.
No, I'm afraid RHoD contains no open content. The gist, however, is simple enough:
The battle is won when a certain number of victory points is gained. You gain victory points by achieving certain things: killing commanders/casters, stopping/repelling the bridge attack, forging/disrupting alliances, harvesting/disrupting supplies. The points gained for each task are usually low (1-5 pts), but can be higher for significant successes. The points must be accrued within a certain timeline to ensure victory.
Mmm looks simple enough, and quite interesting too. Unfortunately I don't think I could easily use those rules in Spires of Xin-Shalast, unless I stage a massive battle between my players plus the freed giants versus the rest of Karzoug's servants. It would be massively awesome, but I fear the amount of tweaking required would take a looooooong time to do.
The Ebidwar's description sure does suggest the book to be more useful in mass combat situations, and simply treating it as a standard hand-to-hand combat aid would be a somewhat poor choice... I think I'll change my players' reward to something more suited to help them in stopping Karzoug, but I think I will also store the Ebidwar and the above suggestions for use in our next campaign :)
Thank you all!
No, I'm afraid RHoD contains no open content. The gist, however, is simple enough:
The battle is won when a certain number of victory points is gained. You gain victory points by achieving certain things: killing commanders/casters, stopping/repelling the bridge attack, forging/disrupting alliances, harvesting/disrupting supplies. The points gained for each task are usually low (1-5 pts), but can be higher for significant successes. The points must be accrued within a certain timeline to ensure victory.
Mmm looks simple enough, and quite interesting too. Unfortunately I don't think I could easily use those rules in Spires of Xin-Shalast, unless I stage a massive battle between my players plus the freed giants versus the rest of Karzoug's servants. It would be massively awesome, but I fear the amount of tweaking required would take a looooooong time to do.
The Ebidwar's description sure does suggest the book to be more useful in mass combat situations, and simply treating it as a standard hand-to-hand combat aid would be a somewhat poor choice... I think I'll change my players' reward to something more suited to help them in stopping Karzoug, but I think I will also store the Ebidwar and the above suggestions for use in our next campaign :)
Thank you all!
I don't think Ebidwar was ever intended to be used in SOXS. I think it was one of those "cool to own" sort of rewards.
You could always say it grants its possessor two leadership feats and maybe the ability to cast bless 3x a day, that's a pretty potent combo. Depends how powerful you want it to be, there could be that part where it also folds out into an Instant Fortress and allows you to cast Wall of Stone x4 a day and gives you telepathy 100'.
It strikes me as definitely an item useful mostly in large scale war, a bit like a magical Sun Tzu's Art of War. From that I would likewise allow it to grant any reader some limited permanent bonuses (+2-5 to rolls involving battle checks etc) but reserve the main bonuses to the possessor of the text such as:
Troop Morale
Troops trained, raised or addressed by the owner of the Ebidwar have firm belief in their abilities (effect: they gain the effect of a heroism spell while following his commands in battle).
Battle Intuition
From surveying the site of a future battle the owner of the Ebidwar becomes aware of all of the strategies that the enemy will employ.(effect: before any battle commences the GM will tell the owner all of the other sides plans unless they are based upon unforseeable abilities- this may be used in a combat if the PC knows the terrain and the enemy and has 3 rounds to survey the ground before a battle commences)
Battle Deception
The commander of the Ebidwar may, through clever use of tactics, deceive his enem(y/ies) as to his various troops strength, speed, distance from battle, morale, discipline and capacity (effect this is most powerful as it forces your enemy into error- thus it should be reserved for large scale battle otherwise it could do things such as causing the enemy to focus its magic on the pet golem, or to think the monk is in fact a wizard and use missile and reflex save magic on her etc)
No errors
The commander does not make mistakes in battle (again in large scale this may mean that they never roll less than a 10 on a d20 command or battle tactics check or some such)
These are some thoughts but they are meant to be pure icing on the PC cake of cool abilities
Werecorpse has a very cool use for the Ebidwar. In my campaign the Ebidwar granted my character the Leadership Feat as a bonus feat, a perminent +3 inherent bonus to Charisma (as similar tomes of magic), and situational bonuses to knowledge checks that deal with war or military strategy and such.
The book could only be used once. For flavor my GM handled it a bit like Mat from the Wheel of Time Series. After reading this book the "spirit" of the general entered my heroes mind. So during times of war my hero gets flashes of memories that are not his (explaining the bonus to various knowledge skills at odd moments), the leadership and cha bonus reflect a subconsious change in how he holds himself and acts.
As there have been no "official" rules put out, this what we went with. I feel it has worked great, and we've enjoyed it.
If anyone has rules that work along these lines, are able to expand upon them, or think you have a better use of Ebidwar please let me know. Both my GM and I are interested in seeing what others have done.